You can now add your BlackBerry Messenger barcode to your Facebook profile using the new Barcode generator app on Facebook. While it's not likely what we were all hoping for, it's kinda cool to play around with. You can add your PIN, change your barcode colors and background. One more pic after the jump of some of it in action, although..at the moment the Facebook app seems to be having some troubles.

You can already display your bar code, save the image, then upload it via the facebook app on your BB and it does the same thing! Fail on RIM's part. The only 'update' is that you can colorize the bar code. Sorry but whoop-de-doo.

why can't you freak'n scan a barcode directly from the camera screeen. going into bbmsger just to scan a code is silly. add an option to the camera menu. dont RIM developers think? they over look the simple tasks.

When I tried it soon after the blog post was made, everything worked but uploading the barcode to my Facebook page. It brought up my BlackBerry and instead of the barcode being on the "screen" in the picture of the BB, it was off to the side and unable to be fully seen. Also, my BB wouldn't read barcodes from the Facebook generated barcodes (though taking a photo of them on CB forums works fine...?!)

and this confirms most suspicions from yesterday....the new things coming have nothing to do with getting new things on our BBM, but utilizing what we already have in different ways, such as the barcode.

What's with the colours? "Personalize" or more of "choose our options and like it". We could've done this normally WITHOUT another app on our pages - this isn't what we're looking for! Besides, where' the "RIM BLUE" in all these lovely colour combos? ... FAIL...

While this seems kind of lame, I like that they're trying to spread BBM barcode awareness. Most people know nothing about it.

even more frustrating is new BBs still coming with 4.x versions of BBM. I've convinced a lot of people to switch to BBs. When showing them how to use it and set it up and how cool BBM is, I have to upgrade them so I can show them how the barcodes work.

But, yeah, if more people know about and how to use the barcodes, it'd make the whole thing more purposeful.

I agree. This may seem lame to the folks that frequent this site but to everyone else, promotion of this feature is definitely a good thing. I think it is a particularly good idea considering that these barcodes are going to be in more and more common use.

P.S. If you can forego the color customization, you can already save your barcode onto the phones memory card. If you go into BBM and bring up the code and hit the menu key or the trackpad/ball there is an option to Save Barcode Image which will prompt you to save it to a location on your card. It saves the image in png format. I use shortcutme and create a shortcut to the picture folder that contains the barcode images (I have more than one in the folder) and it is much quicker than going in to BBM and calling it up.

I was interested to see what rim had planned until this annoucment. I hope they have better stuff in store because this really doesn't mean much in the long run, but with no upgrades required I'm doubting its anything most blackberry users haven't been doing them selves already.

How about getting the twitter app updated and out to the general public instead of wasting time on this? Or update the facebook app (for the phone) with more functions (facebook chat amongst other things). Is rim listening to the consumers?

RIM listen to the consumer...... Not likely. If they were they would be more concerned with fixing the joke called Facebook for BlackBerry.. And maybe they would be less concerned with having 10 diferent models on the shelves and concentrate on making a good browser. The people want a browser that isn't a joke..... Not a slider phone... Oh but that's right more money in new hardware.

Would putting your barcode "out there" for everyone to see possbily put you in danger of getting spam just like putting an email out there for people to find?
Just a thought - last thing I need is a bunch of junk coming to my BBM.

Also, I agree with those who believe RIM is just trying to get this feature more mainstream, many people have no idea it's even available.

hahaha @limegrass69.. i mean really.. how will this be different from a captureit of the bbm code screen? like ive been doin and just posting it? this seems like a thing for noobs to get excited about.. then again.. what wouldnt a noob be excited about..

So true, so true... All you had to do is screenshot the sucker and upload. But alas, it reminds me of musician differentiation. You have the guy who has a guitar, You have another who plays guitar, and the you have a true guitarist. Just change it around, You have the guy who has a BlackBerry, you have a BlackBerry "Power User", then there's the rest of us, CRACKBERRY USERS AND ABUSERS!!!

As I noted above, you don't have to use a screen capture program to do this, the feature is already built into BBM. At the BBM code screen, hit the menu key and the option to "Save Barcode Image" is in the menu.

Man people are always complaining! Talking about that it sucks and what's the point of such a small update. Big or small its improvement and improvement takes time. Non of you own a million dollar company of one of the best smartphones out there so calm dawn and shut up!. Blackberry is awesome and its improving more every day.

Wow there is a lot of people on here that could make RIM so much smarter maybe they'll give you guys jobs!!.....Wah wah wwaaahhhh. I understand its not working just give it time. When this finally gets up an running yall will be running lol

you all know that theres a big thing going around where hackers are sending out an email to facebook users saying that their password needs to be reset..its in the form of an attachment that you open, if you open the attachment it downloads malware to your computer and it will steal all your info. McAfee is makin a big deal about it, so just look out.

Simply said, you guys are missing the point. RIM is trying to spread awareness with this. Good for them! I like the newly re-designed NA website...looks like they're pushing toward marketing to teens/young adults, and the twenty-somethings. I like it. I am certain there is more to come...this is just one small step. As many have said, most people don't even know BBM 5.0 exists, let alone the barcode feature. They needed to do something to spread awareness. Most people I talk to won't touch a BB because it is so "complicated" to them...RIM knows they have this stigma to certain demographics, and is clearly trying to change this. I like it...thumbs up.

You are absolutely right. I don't know how many people I have come in contact with who have Blackberries and when I say "Hey what's your pin# so I can add you to BBM" I get the deer in headlights look followed by "Pin#?". I've already had several of my friend send me messages on facebook asking how to do this so I think RIM is making a good move.

Can any of you whiners point to the press release where RIM stated "This is the only thing we're doing!"? There is already a large group of people that share their PINs and BB just made it a bit easier. Just because something isn't for you don't assume it's worthless. Waaahhhhhhhh.

so I just did this, and went to scan my own barcode on the screen I don't know if putting the blackberry close to the computer or it was scanning the barcode, but as soon as it beeped as registering the scan, all the colors on my screens got all messed up and I'm in the process of battery pull to see if it fixes it.

Very odd and has never happened before

*Update* After battery pull all is well, scared the living you kno what outta me though I fried the screen. I wonder what caused it?

Maybe it's just me, but why would you want your BB Pin/Barcode out there for anyone to see? I don't know if anyone can do anything mischievous with that info, but if I want someone's BB Pin, chances are they're in my Contacts list. Just text them and ask for it (or heaven forbid we call someone and spend a few minutes catching up). And no, I'm not old. lol

i am one of those people who loves my bb but knew nothing about the barcode, or even what it does. i think it's kinda cool, and worked fine for me.
i have also had fb problems with bb, but they work themselves out eventually. i love coming here everyday to find all the cool stuff my baby can do, it's amazing. i think maybe people get a bit too uptight about things... LOL

It worked for me, though it took a bit of work to get the barcode to scan.

I agree, remove the pic of the phone and make the barcode larger.

I think its a decent idea. Certainly not ground breaking or going to win customers over from other platforms. The barcode concept is a good one, I know many people who are not crackberry users but plain old blackberry users and have never heard of the PIN.

i think ill open my facebook app and try to write on a wall. by the time the app updates my contacts, percentage point by aching percentage point, perhaps RIM will have come out with something innovative.

Haven't tried the facebook yet, because I'm at work. All of a sudden, my bb said (via popup) it needs to reboot for "module installation" is this normal? If not could it be part of the bbm hype? Anyone else getting this message. Remember, I haven't done anything new to get this message. Just wondering..

I had no problem using the barcode generator @FB. The only thing that hasn't worked thus far is - it did not email me a copy of the barcode I created. But there's still time... ATT may be having a problem today, too.

Mine is working, but the picture it display is your BB "model" with the barcode in the screen, but the barcode is outside of the screen and isn't showing complete, so is not working with your BB photo.

But is you add it to a profile picture, u puts the barcode at right bottom of the picture, this works fine,

I'm having the same problem on my storm as others have reported. When I am setting up the facebook widget, my barcode displays only half of it because the image of the barcode is off-center and is too low. It's like the center of the barcode image is at the point of the bottom-right of the image of the phone if that makes any sense. I've tried it on both Chrome and Firefox, same results.

I agree the barcode pic on the image of the device is too small to scan, but I was able to scan the barcode added to my profile pic with no problem although I did notice it showed up on my BB with my facebook name.

I don`t think it works for all desktop resolutions, so it cuts off. They should have done more testing before releasing. This probably another reason why some people CAN scan and other`s can. I personally CANNOT scan the code (too small but that may be because of my resolution of 1680 x 1050). Hope they fix this.

For those of us who may have at least two brain cells left that aren't fighting...a better alternative is to Google "barcode generator"...then you can make any image, text or URL into a barcode. Take it a step further and got to a site like faceinhole.com, and drop your new barcode into a sick scene from a movie or on to the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel or anything else they already have templated!!! I actually barcoded a pic of a nice rack and had it screen-printed on to the front of a friends tshirt! Dirty & Nerdy!

For someone to scan a barcode to add someone to BBM they have to be in BBM with the invite by barcode option open. The other person can do two things. Access BBM to view barcode or access a saved photo of it to display their barcode. The person then scans it.

Other option is to be in BBM with invite by PIN option open. The other person could then press ALT+UPPERCASE+H to display their PIN and the person eneters it.

What takes longer? For the invitee to find the image of their barcode somewhere on their device and the other person scans it, or the inviter to type in a PIN after the invitee imediately pulls it up?

I would have to say typing the PIN in would be faster in most cases...

Barcode technology is great for viewing lots of other things but as far as adding a BBM contact there is no speed advantage, which is the premisis on which RIM is pushing this out on...

I can get what RIM wanted to do here, and its a nice first step, but they didnt think it through. What I would have done is extend the ideal (the entire super app concept?). When viewing your barcode in BBM have a upload to facebook option right there in the menu. Its uploaded to the facebook application they created thats visible on your profile. If your in the facebook application on your BB you get a menu option when viewing a friends profile (that uses the facebook application) to view the barcode and add the user as a friend.

I downloaded and installed my BB Z-X on Facebook but the icon is so small my phone can't scan the damn thing, if I click on it instead of enlarging it, it redirects me to the generator page instead.Why the fuss about doing all of this then ????

Well it appears to be working. However, it is a real pain to get the image to scan properly within bbm. Takes forever to focus on the image once it's displayed on the computer screen. I placed it in my profile to see how that works after the device selection (no storm 2?)!! You can click on the image in the profile to enlarge the barcode a bit. First attempt to scan the barcode locked my phone, had to do a battery pull to get up and running again.

For those of you who do not know. Open BBM, bb button, invite contact, scan persons barcode, and then line the phone up so it can focus on the barcode image. Once the camera gets a clear focus on the barcode it should automatically go the the next screen.

waaa waaaaa waaaaaa. i'm the last guy that should be able to figure this out, but i just followed the directions and it worked. i just scanned my own barcode and added myself to my contacts...... can i chat with myself now?

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